Can this chestnut be saved? Foundation says yes

The American Chestnut Foundation brings its annual meeting to Burlington on Friday amid high hopes that its 20-year breeding program has produced a tree resistant to the fatal chestnut blight.

Full story

"Gitcher peanuts, popcorn, Heimskringla..."

If a scholar of Norse mythology had been in the stands of Yankee Stadium on Tuesday night, he or she probably would have advised Yankees fans to not make too much out of the 5-3 victory against the Red Sox.

The result, after all, still left the Yankees trailing Boston by an imposing seven games in the American League East. But more significant, perhaps, was the pesky and distracting squirrel that scampered up and down the right-field foul pole during the game and that, according to Norse mythology, just might have foretold that the Yankees will not prevail over the Red Sox this season.

Believe it or not, the squirrel’s actions closely resembled those of Ratatosk, or “gnawing tooth,” a squirrel in Norse mythology that climbed up and down a tree that represented the world. Snorri Sturluson, an Icelandic scholar and poet, recorded the story in his 13th-century work “Prose Edda.”

As the story goes, Ratatosk carried insults as it traveled to opposite ends of the tree, fueling a rivalry between the evil dragon residing at the bottom of the tree and the eagle perched at the top.

“Oh, that’s perfect,” said Roberta Frank, a professor of Old Norse and Old English at Yale University, when told of the squirrel’s antics at the stadium.

Frank was born in the Bronx and is a Yankees fan. She said in a telephone interview yesterday that in the Bronx version of this myth, the Yankees would probably represent the eagle and the rival Red Sox would represent the dragon. The Yankees, after all, are the home team this week, more or less making them the good guys. And if there were a sports team identified with an eagle, it has to be the Yankees, who have begun any number of postseason games with a visit from Challenger, the bald eagle who swoops in from center field.


By Teddy Kider The New York Times

FULL ARTICLE

Thanks to Cryptomundo

Wikipedia has a selection of modern manifestations of Ratatosk. Image of horned squirrel above is from a 17th century Icelandic manuscript. Will we see Xeni Jardin using it as a "unicorn chaser" on Boing Boing one of these days?

A new mode of nature writing?

Madeleine Bunting writes in The Guardian on what she sees as a new way of writing about nature. She sees this as a visionary movement, where learning to pay attention to particulars has a redemptive quality that benefits both humans and the natural world (though I'm not sure that was a quality absent from previous modes of nature writing).

Bunting argues that books such as Mark Cocker's Crow Country, Kathleen Jamie's Findings, and Roger Deakin's Wildwood are "a new genre of writing. It doesn't quite fit to call it "nature writing", because what makes these books so compelling - and important - is that they put centre stage the interconnections between nature and human beings."

"The floods in Yorkshire last month were a sharp reminder of what happens when we don't understand the land on which we live. The sight of thousands of flooded homes made us realise what many previous generations would never have forgotten about the way in which water has to move through land. Renewing our relationship with the natural world, on which our wellbeing depends, is at the heart of this genre of writing - but it presses its case not with statistics and fear of apocalyptic scenarios of global warming, but with seduction, urging on readers an aesthetic case for the spectacular beauty that lies beyond their windscreen if they can be bothered to stop the car and get out.

It's the British equivalent in the 21st century to John Muir, the legendary writer who founded the US Sierra Club and Yosemite National Park, and who in 1901 wrote that "thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilised people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home". We may have hills rather than mountains, but that's what summer holidays should be about - going home."

Sounds like a good group of books to add to your reading pile. Bunting mentions that all of the writers she discussses have pebbles to hand, or lined up on their desks. What pebbles do you have lined up on your desk? I'm tending currently toward smooth, water-rounded stones nearest my desk; the fossils are six feet further away.

Pseudo-Elizabethan Placename Generator

Blearybarrow Snitterel Snapemore Babbingporte Ashead
Lindfield Locktonleigh Newdery Umbermount Wodeney
Huttonhope Cuddonshaw Woltonston Marshbrygg Foggford
Cravenlocke Throckstin Swainsreagh Marhearst Wolfdenwocky
Fishstocke Cheddarswich Follygrass Listerfork Cassyden
Wintergill Asplinchase Barmfens Beldansridge Colbyham
Crowsteeple Pinchcourse Brokesheaf Complincliff Augurland
Waldewake Bacuplark Deeringwedge Faldoveldt Winklebury

Et cetera.

Forget that you can hear the nearby bulldozers knocking down the homes of little woodland creatures, to be replaced by developments like "Quail Run" named after little woodland creatures they've replaced. Flee to the imagined past of The Olde Country. When my children were small, on the way to our occasional vacations in Bath, I'd sing to them when we passed the sign for Nimlet,

We go to the hamlet of Nimlet
Go to the hamlet of Nimlet
Go to the hamlet
Eat egglets and spamlets
Go to the hamlet of Nimlet

(It's folk music, dammit, it doesn't have to be brilliant, and I'm not Brightshadow) :)

Quote of the Day

“We all know exactly what it is like to be an Atheist. You are an atheist about Zeus, Ra, Thor, Allah, Brahma. I just go one god further.” -- Richard Dawkins to members of non-Pagan faith traditions

Viking ship reconstruction reaches Dublin

The Sea Stallion, a reconstruction of a Viking ship carrying a crew of 65, has reached Dublin after a seven week, 1000 mile sail from Denmark.

Firefox and Witchcraft - The Connection?

From the delightful xkcd: A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.

Concentration Camp Tarot Cards

Political prisoner Boris Kobe created tarot cards with images reflecting life in the concentration camp of Allach, a sub-camp of Dachau. The cards, done around 1945, are meticulous observations of individuals and groups.

The website of theCenter for Holocaust & Genocide Studies; at the University of Minnesota is hosting the images, the originals remain in Slovenia.

Thanks to Boing Boing

Bad Green Man, No Biscuit

James Coldwell, 49, disguised himself as a tree when he robbed a bank in Manchester, New Hampshire on Saturday. He had tree branches attached to his clothing and head with duct tape.

Quote of the day

"Thanks for coming, Mary, we loved your talk. Although I'm still perplexed as to how one would attach a phallus to a chariot." -- Anna

Merry Meet 2007

Hello to those of you who came here from the Merry Meet flyer. While I'm running behind on getting the Cafepress graphics up and running, I will have some photos of the stones at the U Mass Sun Wheel soon. Please bookmark and stop back!

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows of sustainable paper

By David Biello

I promise not to give anything away, just wanted to highlight a few facts about the impending mega-release: its first printing will consume 16,700 tons of paper (which, depending on whose estimates of tree per piece of paper you believe, equals roughly 400,800 trees), according to Scholastic.

Ah, but the printers have performed a little wizardry of their own, using wood certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. 260,520 of those trees were "sustainably harvested," which means the companies that harvested it took into account environmental and social factors (though it doesn't mean they didn't come from a plantation, just that this tree farm set aside some acreage for "natural forest cover." Oh, and the plantation species don't have to be native if "their performance is greater than that of the native species," according to the FSC website.)

Because the printing industry in the U.S. alone consumes at least 24 million trees a year, according to the Center for Paper Business and Industry Studies at Georgia Tech, any steps in this direction are to be lauded. After all, preventing the loss of forests could go a long way towards avoiding catastrophic greenhouse gas levels.

But any book that has sold millions of copies before it even hits the shelves (and despite leaks) is probably better suited to recycled paper--and a "deluxe" edition printed on recycled paper will be available. But why only 100,000? Granted, China is eating up the supply of waste paper at a galloping pace--preventing 65 million metric tons of the stuff from hitting landfills, according to a recent report--but surely there are a few sheaves left somewhere. And it shouldn't take wizardry to find them, nor cost an arm and a leg (though I hear wizarding might.) Zhang Yin, the "Queen of Trash" seems to be making a good living at it, muggle or not.

Useful links on the original article site, the Scientific American blog.

Floods threaten Silbury Hill and Rotherwas Ribbon

By Maeve Kennedy The Guardian

Rain was falling remorselessly on Silbury Hill yesterday, pooling on the sodden fields at its foot, and dangerously seeping down into the core of the most enigmatic prehistoric monument in Europe. The entire hill near Avebury in Wiltshire is artificial, built around 4,500 years ago by stupendous human effort with an estimated 35m baskets of chalk. Yesterday, archaeologists and engineers were engaged in urgent discussions on how to save Silbury, after the torrential rain caused further damage to a structure already weakened by earlier floods. [snip]

In floods five years ago, a chasm opened at the top of the hill, where a poorly filled 200-year-old shaft collapsed, and water poured down into the structure, seeping into voids left by generations of later diggers, including the tunnels from a major excavation in the 1960s. The plan, now left in chaos by the weather, was to empty those tunnels completely of their previous loose fill, and then pack them solidly again with chalk. Instead rain is still seeping into the mound, from the summit where the earlier domed repair has already partly washed away, causing damage which can't even be fully assessed until the rain stops.

Silbury is not alone. As well as the human tragedies, the floods have been washing away thousands of years of history, across a swath of central and southern England. Silbury has been unmissable for millennia, but in Hereford, rain has been scouring away parts of a mysterious structure uncovered only a few weeks ago: the Rotherwas Ribbon, a serpentine path surfaced with deliberately burned stones, winding up a shallow hill - slap in the path of an unpopular new road plan.

FULL ARTICLE

I posted about the Rotherwas Ribbon several weeks ago.

Part 2: Military Helicopters Over East Field Wheat Formation

Linda Moulton Howe's continuation of the crop circle article I posted July 20th.


Part 2: Military Helicopters Over East Field Wheat Formation

By Linda Moulton Howe

"There was a terrible smell from the helicopter.
I can describe it as being a sulfurous smell – very powerful!
It made my eyes burn. I noticed half a dozen other people as well –
they were quite severely affected. I saw one man throwing up
into the crop.... and my dosimeter shot up very high between 300 and 500 ...
which means get out of the place. It’s dangerous!"
- Andrew J. Buckley, U. K. Graphic Designer

FULL ARTICLE

Aggressive swarming by unmarked black helicopters, possible infra-sound, significant yet transitory radiation levels. Very disturbing.

Crop Circle Connector -- the primary British crop circle resource. They provide a valuable service, and membership wil give you access to their archives. Please show your support for them.
http://www.cropcircleconnector.com/interface2005.htm

Oscar the Cat Predicts Patients' Deaths

By Ray Allen

Oscar the cat seems to have an uncanny knack for predicting when nursing home patients are going to die, by curling up next to them during their final hours. His accuracy, observed in 25 cases, has led the staff to call family members once he has chosen someone. It usually means they have less than four hours to live.

"He doesn't make too many mistakes. He seems to understand when patients are about to die," said Dr. David Dosa in an interview. He describes the phenomenon in a poignant essay in Thursday's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. [snip]

After about six months, the staff noticed Oscar would make his own rounds, just like the doctors and nurses. He'd sniff and observe patients, then sit beside people who would wind up dying in a few hours.

FULL ARTICLE

The quote by the animal behaviorist Dodman calling the cat a "furry grim reaper" was a bit much. Though I guess it's better than "silken-furred psychopomp" would have been.

God, a woman growing older

By Rabbi Margaret Wenig

God is a woman and she is growing older. She moves more slowly now. She cannot stand erect. Her face is lined. Her voice is scratchy. Sometimes she has to strain to hear. God is a woman and she is growing older, yet she remembers everything.

On Rosh Hashanah, the anniversary of the day on which she gave us birth, God sits down at her kitchen table, opens the Book of Memories, begins turning the pages, and God remembers.

"There, there is the world when it was new and my children when they were young." As she turns each page she smiles, seeing before her, like so many dolls in a department store window, all the beautiful colors of our skin, the varied shapes and sizes of our bodies. She marvels at our accomplishments: the music we have written, the gardens we have planted, the stories we have told, the ideas we have spun.

"They now can fly faster than the winds I send," she says to herself, "and they sail across the waters which I gathered into seas. They even visit the moon which I set in the sky. But they rarely visit me. . ."

COMPLETE PIECE

Thanks to The Back Room

Harry Potter: the economics

By Megan McArdle

But there have to be generally accepted rules. Characters can't get out of the predicament the author is sick of by having the car suddenly start running on sand. Similarly, if your characters will be using magic, they must do so by some generally believable system.

Yet in the Potter books, the costs and limits are too often arbitrary. A patronus charm, for example, is awfully difficult - until Rowling wants a stirring scene in which Harry pulls together an intrepid band of students to Fight the Power, whereupon it becomes simple enough to be taught by an inexperienced fifteen year old. Rowling can only do this because it's thoroughly unclear how magic power is acquired. It seems hard to credit academic labour, when spells are one or two words; and anyway, if that were the determinant, Hermione Granger would be a better wizard than Harry. But if it's something akin to athletic skill, why is it taught at rows of desks? And why aren't students worn out after practicing spells?

The low opportunity cost attached to magic spills over into the thoroughly unbelievable wizard economy. Why are the Weasleys poor? Why would any wizard be? Anything they need, except scarce magical objects, can be obtained by ordering a house elf to do it, or casting a spell, or, in a pinch, making objects like dinner, or a house, assemble themselves. Yet the Weasleys are poor not just by wizard standards, but by ours: they lack things like new clothes and textbooks that should be easily obtainable with a few magic words. Why?

COMPLETE ARTICLE

Thanks to Chas Clifton

Crop Circle: Alton Priors

1,033-Foot-Long East Field Wheat Formation "Happened Within 90 Minutes." Investigators presented video and eyewitness evidence

Linda Moulton Howe has a presentation on a recent crop circle formation at Alton Priors, Wilts. July 7. This is part 1 of 2, second is not up yet. Aside from the witnesses, and the tantalizing bits of documentation, what I find particularly interesting is this:

The East Field is not a totally flat pancake field. It actually curves up and down. When you look at the formation from up above from an aerial photo, you see that the circles are absolutely 100% correct circles. To make circles look 100% from the air in a field that has up and down hills, you cannot create 100% perfect circles on the ground. You have to create ovals. And that’s the case here. All the circles that are lying on a hill more than flat surface, they are ovals. To construct 100% correct oval in total darkness – everything you do is extremely difficult because you can’t see anything.

So, to construct not just one, but several ovals and large ones – the largest one is like 50 meters, or 160 feet. Under those dark conditions, I would consider that impossible and everyone I have spoken to among the researchers down here and also civil engineers who are used to land surveys – they say that to do that under those conditions and also within that limited time frame (90 minutes), they regard it as absolutely impossible for humans to do.

Photo is by Lucy Pringle (more on site). I felt this one shows the slope of the land fairly well.

Viking treasure hoard uncovered

Viking treasure hoard uncovered

The most important Viking treasure find in Britain for 150 years has been unearthed by a father and son while metal detecting in Yorkshire. David and Andrew Whelan uncovered the hoard, which dates back to the 10th Century, in Harrogate in January [snip]

The ancient objects come from as far afield as Afghanistan in the East and Ireland in the West, as well as Russia, Scandinavia and continental Europe.

The hoard contains 617 silver coins and 65 other objects, including a gold arm-ring and a gilt silver vessel.

Dr Jonathan Williams, keeper of prehistory in Europe at the British Museum, said: "[The cup] is beautifully decorated and was made in France or Germany at around AD900.

"It is fantastically rare - there are only a handful of others known around the world. It will be stunning when it is fully conserved."

COMPLETE ARTICLE

Series of pictures of the cup and its contents

Thanks to BoingBoing

Strange Creatures Seen In San Luis Argentina

Translated by Scott Corales for UFO Updates

Residents of Merlo claim having seen imps near a hundred year
old eucalyptus tree. A strange story from Valle de Conlara.

The Municipality trimmed the tree because its large branches were jeopardizing motorists traveling along Avenida del Inca. After work, some residents reportedly saw "little men coming out [of the tree] in single file from that location." [snip] Most witnesses did not offer details, but one woman described their clothing as having a brownish hue," said Cecillia de Gabrele, an employee at the library. The article continues